The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has announced that telecommunications companies (Telcos) are authorized to deactivate inactive subscribers from their networks after six months of inactivity.

This is a key provision outlined in the newly approved guidelines for Telcos by the NCC, which will be implemented soon.

The new NCC guidelines, titled, ‘Draft Quality of Service Business Rules’, stipulate the minimum quality and standards of service, associated measurements, and key performance indicators for measuring the quality of service.

Per the guidelines, if a subscriber remains inactive for an additional six months, there is a possibility of losing their number, unless there is a network-related issue preventing the activation of the Registered Glove Enclave (RGE).

“A subscriber’s line may be deactivated if it has not been used, within six months, for a Revenue Generating Event (RGE), and if the situation persists for another six months, the subscriber may lose their number, except for a network-related fault inhibiting an RGE,” the guidelines stipulated.

Recycling of inactive phone numbers has remained a big subject in Nigeria, following the arrest of one Anthony Okolie, a Delta State-based trader, by the Department of State Services (DSS), for using a SIM previously owned by Hanan Buhari, the president’s daughter.

Based on the new guidelines, the NCC said that telcos have the authority to reassign dormant SIM cards without recourse to the previous owners, as long as the inactivity falls within the stipulated period of six months.

For subscribers who wish to recover their lines after it might have been recycled, the commission said they must provide “proof of good reason for absence and are at liberty to request for line parking.”

In the guidelines, the NCC announced other regulations, including alert etiquette.

The commission stated that during credit alert notifications while on a call, telecommunications companies (telcos) should provide “a single short-beep” to the call initiator two minutes before the call is set to end, and another beep at 30 seconds before termination.

The NCC also said that if a call is unable to last for up to 30 seconds, a low credit announcement should be played when the call is initiated.

These new guidelines have been introduced per Section 57 of the NCC Act, allowing stakeholders to provide their input on the policy.

Additionally, the NCC directed in the guidelines, that telcos ensure that customers are attended to within 30 minutes upon their arrival at any of the telcos’ service centers nationwide.

“For customer care centers, waiting time to be physically attended to by relevant staff at customer care centers is 30 minutes. The licensee shall provide means of measuring the waiting time, starting from the time of arrival at the premises,” the guideline said.

The commission also said telcos must ensure that customers are hastily attended to when they call a helpline or visit their providers’ offices.

“Lines should not be more than three times; maximum number of rings before a call is answered by either an IVR machine or a live agent should not be more than five; and where a customer decides to speak to a live agent, the maximum duration allowable on the queue/IVR should be five minutes before answer,” the NCC said.

The regulator added: “In exceptional cases where a live agent may be unavailable within five minutes to answer the call, a customer should be given an option to hang up to be called back within a maximum time of 30 minutes. Customer care lines that can be accessible through 21 free access numbers and if one number, then it should accommodate multiple other network calls at the same time.”

I am long on strategic subsidies and I believe that governments can subsidize critical components in market systems. I have been making that point for years.  The job of a government is to create platforms, and then allow private companies to build companies on top of them. In an efficient market system, roads, security, affordable energy, working postal services, etc are platforms. We teach platforms to startups, explaining that if you build a great one, you win your market. Indeed, the largest and richest companies in the world today (Apple, Amazon, Meta, etc) are all platforms, and the most prosperous countries in the world  (China, USA, Japan, etc) build platforms!

In 2019, I was invited to the National Assembly; I made the same point: you need to become effective and subsidize things: “we discussed the mechanics to take this nation from $500B to $3 Trillion GDP. I want to thank the Speaker of the House Femi Gbajabiamila for approving my special day,” I wrote afterwards.

I boldly told our leaders that if they followed my plan that Nigeria would move from $500B to $3 trillion in GDP within 15 years! It was a tough one because I pushed the unconventional wisdom that we must further subsidize postal services, petrol, and education, EFFICIENTLY. I lived in Ovim for years before I left for FUTO. But with our then working post office, I was not far from the city. But when the post office went, the village became a distant place, with the commercial angle gone!

As part of my plan to subsidize more, I noted that Nigeria must remove corruption as a “ministry”. I laid the plan here in my hypothetical presidential speech. I called the removal of corruption Pillar 1 and wrote: “We will build a corruption-free nation where it would be extremely impossible to perpetuate corruption because technology will make things obviously transparent. All government systems must be structured to be corruption-resilient so that people that want to perpetuate corruption will fail.”

Of course, I do not also believe in the floating of Naira unless there is an industrialization playbook (you must float industries before you can efficiently float naira). I have explained that no economic fundamentals within a demand–supply framework would help Naira, when our demand is asymmetrically more than supply: “If I apply what he explained in that book [AO Lawal book on economics], floating naira with no capacity to earn USD dollars will kill Naira, because there is an asymmetric imbalance on demand and supply of USD in the Willing Buyer, Willing Seller nexus. In other words, two people may each have $100 to sell while twenty people want to buy each $100. If you do not close that number to near parity, the equilibrium point will keep shifting and I do not see how Naira will stabilize because demand outweighs supply here.”

Fuel subsidy, postal subsidy and dual exchange rate are not the issues. The challenge is that inefficiency in the government is why they appear to be bad policies as I explained here.

Dual FX in a corruption-free system is a subsidy which can help manufacturers; the US has released $billions to Intel, Ford, etc on different initiatives to help them compete, that is their own FX subsidies and dual exchange! Nigeria at our present state of industrialization will struggle to unify our currency unless our diasporas could be asked to save at least 30% of their salaries in Nigerian banks. 

Like majorly using interest rates to fight inflation in Nigeria which makes minimal sense, our leaders must be creative because our challenges are unique

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Please do not read anything political in my posts. When I write, my mind works better, and I feel liberated. Writing is my tea and coffee. These are postulations from a village guy; always consult with the experts. Nonetheless, I am always open to defend my positions. A piece is…

— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) July 1, 2023